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The Transatlantic slave trade

The Transatlantic slave trade (1501-1867), known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade, sold at least 12.5 million black Africans as slaves to work for white landowners on the other side of the ocean. Of these 1.8 million died at sea. Most of the rest were worked to death within seven years in the sugar cane fields of Brazil and the Caribbean.

The slave trade reached its height in the 1780s. A third of those sold were women. Towards the end a fourth were children!

Because the big money was in sugar only 4% came to the cotton and tobacco fields of North America. Three-fourths of those came from West Africa, the rest from what is now Congo, Angola and Mozambique.

While Europeans did catch some of their own slaves, they generally bought them from Africans. At first the Africans sold them prisoners of war but later as the market grew wars were fought to get slaves to sell.

A common white belief is that Africans “sold their own” as slaves. That is based on yet another common white belief: that Africa is a country. Africans did not sell their own: they sold their enemies. This became much easier to do once Europeans brought the gun to Africa and supplied a ready market for slaves.

Africans practised slavery long before the Europeans showed up, but the European kind was a different beast:

It was on a much vaster scale – millions, not thousands.

It was based on skin colour.

It was lifelong and fell upon one’s children too.

If you were caught you were put in chains and marched to a slave fort on the coast. Because you were on foot that could take months. About one in five – 3 million in all – died in these death marches.

Once at the fort you were put behind bars and there you waited for a slave ship and a good wind. That might take yet more months. And if the ship was not full it would spend weeks or months visiting yet other slave forts along the coast to fill up.

The Middle Passage:

It took as little as a month to get to Brazil, two months or more to get to North America.

Ships were packed so full that you had just enough room to lay down. Sometimes you did not even have enough room to roll over and lay on your side. It was dark and hot and airless and you lived in shit, piss, vomit and menstrual blood. The ship’s crew raped the women and girls. You had little to eat but even worse you had little to drink: fresh water was extremely limited on the high seas.

Disease was common. In the 1500s as many as half died on board. In the 1800s that dropped to 5%. Some who lived went mad.

So many slaves came that it was not until the 1840s and the Irish Potato Famine that more whites than blacks crossed the Atlantic.

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It took a month to get to Brazil, two months or more to get to North America.

It could take far longer, depending on what port the ship sailed from and where it went to. The two big slave trading ports in Brazil were Rio and Salvador. Slaves going from southern Africa to Rio could take months to get there, given prevailing winds and currents.

Recall that back in those days, unlike what that map would indicate, nobody sailed in straight lines: you had to follow the prevailing winds. In the South Atlantic, they run counter-clockwise. So a ship from Angola would probably sail north from the Tropic of Cancer, cross the Atlantic, and then have to sail back down to Rio in a big circle.

Y’know, that slave ship loading diagram is one of the most iconic images of the middle passage every produced in the west.

Does anyone know anything about its history or social conditions of production? I mean, what was it produced FOR? A court case? A “how to” manual for the slave trade? As an illustration of an ex-slave’s narrative…?

12 million is usually the conservative estimate, depending on what sources you utilise.

Whatever the figure?? It does not usually take into account the amounts killed in wars and the long march to the coasts.

And a very good point you make about ‘Africans selling their own’, which unfortunately based on ‘self-hate’ and a lack of knowledge of history.

There is also another side to this point. None of us should be surprised if a country would sell their own.

I think there was one other group that were sold and that was those at the bottom of the society.

There is nothing extraordinary about this except in this instance a person would be sold because of ‘status’ and not tribal identity, or a ‘prisoner of war’ – back then there was no such thing as a collective African identity.

And again African slavery of which I guess you can identify two influences:

1. Islamic slavery
2. indigeneous slavery.

Many commentators suggest that even though aspects of Islamic slavery was brutal. On the macro level, it was completely different to the process of ‘chattel slavery’ in the West.

If I may suggest that at some point, you could do a counterpart to this post and discuss the ‘East African Slave Trade’, on the East Coast of Africa, that took Africans to places in the Middle East, islands in the Indian oceans (??) etc.

Very educational. Shows how strong Blacks are that 12.5 million slaves have become well over 100 million strong throughout the New World.

Also, while we know that “Africans sold their own” is a popular refrain, it must also be pointed out that there were Africans who openly opposed and fought against the enslavement of other Africans. That is often missed in the discussion — as it is made out that it was kind Europeans who put an end to the slave trade.

“The Transatlantic slave trade…known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade”

It’s like 1984. Sadly, the term will be used in textbooks around the country (not just Texas) unless people protest and/or write their congressperson demanding such nonsense not be taught to their children in standardized textbooks. Countless other garbage (including implicit evolution denial in sceince textbooks) will be forced upon the education of American children if we do not act.

“Africans did not sell their own: they sold their enemies.”

I agree with that statement completely. Moreover, transatlantic slavery is a disgusting legacy of western European civilization. It is remarkable, however, that during the period in discussion (1501-1867) western Europeans would not “sell their enemies” if the enemies in question were white. Black Subsaharan Africans, on the other hand, continue to sell other black people into slavery to this day. In Haiti, such a domestic slave trade exists and was recently documented in a New York Times blog piece. (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/haitian-tradition-is-criticized-as-child-slavery/) The preceding link includes a gritty video documenting the lives of some child domestic slaves around Port-au-Prince.

Excellent, Abagond. It seems a lot of people focus so much on the slaves that made it to the New World that they forget about the millions that died along the way, and the horrendous conditions they lived in.

I know I would have died on board, or I would have killed myself…Definitely wouldnt have made it.

But I wanted to point out that the map in the post is inaccurate. For instance, a substantial portion of slaves taken to the Southeastern areas of Georgia up through the South Carolina/North Carolina border were from Sierra Leone and Senegambia. And peoples captured from the Bight of Biafra were sent to the Virginia/Maryland area in large numbers. This is backed up by historical documents and genetic testing.

Abagond wrote:“While Europeans did catch some of their own slaves, they generally bought them from Africans.”

This was true only in the latter phase of the slave trade. During the first centuries of this “trade”, the slaves were caught through razzias by the european crews, as evidenced by numerous reports by white captains and traders.

The second phase saw the creation of forts and trading post along the coast, as well as the rise of african auxiliaries of the slave trade and the intervention of europeans in the politics of the african kingdoms.

One can’t understand the 3rd and last phase (the emergence of coastal african slaver kingdoms such as Danxome (Dahomey)) if one is not aware of this process.

Abagond, would you happen to read french? If so I might find you some links from an african forum I know where all the process is discussed.

“But I wanted to point out that the map in the post is inaccurate. For instance, a substantial portion of slaves taken to the Southeastern areas of Georgia up through the South Carolina/North Carolina border were from Sierra Leone and Senegambia. And peoples captured from the Bight of Biafra were sent to the Virginia/Maryland area in large numbers. This is backed up by historical documents and genetic testing”.

From my memory most of those in the Caribbean are from what would be Ghana and Nigeria (Benin).

great post!
“A common white belief is that Africans “sold their own” as slaves. That is based on yet another common white belief: that Africa is a country. Africans did not sell their own: they sold their enemies. This became much easier to do once Europeans brought the gun to Africa and supplied a ready market for slaves.”

Yes, i hate that lie used to excuse european enslavement of africans. Europeans enslaved/ mistreated their own too. Look at how the slovak slaves were tortured and mistreated by their hungarian overlords…research Erzebet bathory to get a good picture of that. Furthermore, there were plenty of africans who tried to stop the sale of african slaves to europeans, such as Queen Nzinga.

I read a book about slavery in Antigua…its a sad thing and a brutal history.

“The Transatlantic slave trade (1501-1867), known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade”
How is that bad? I learned it that way too. We were taught that both mean the same thing, not just in one way. If anything it gives you the whole picture of the trade.

Of course, Peanut could just be reiterating the old “The Irish were slaves, too” myth, right…?

It really saddens me that people could do such horrible things to each other.

Ironically enough, just saw a trailer today which deals with immigration into the U.S. from a Brazilian point of view. We’ve just had a big debate on immigration here. Obviously enough to me, things haven’t changed much. Self-claimed anti-racist activists on this blog would happily see families torn apart and people shipped from one side of the planet to another in chains, kept for months in a time in dungeons awaiting transhipment, etc.

If people who claim to be anti-racist activists on this blog can look that sort of thing in the eye today and say “Fair go. It’s only right”, why would anyone presume that we’ve learned much of anything since 1750?

The targets of inhuman behavior shift around a bit, but it’s always there.

J,
After the importation of slaves became illegal, they were smuggled in through Louisiana for Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia cotton growing. Most of these slaves were from other parts of Africa. The slaves from parts of West Africa were chosen because they had the rice growing skills and a resistance to malaria which was pertinent to the rice growing colonies.

Abagond,
There were only certain African groups that captured slaves and considering the amount of that population, I don’t agree that Africans including Arabs did most of the slave catching.

This is a good post. I knew about the numbers and the time needed to sail, but I didn’t know about the regions of Africa where the slaves came from. I used to think it was more of central Africa; I had no idea about slaves coming from Mozambique.

Now, speaking of slavery, I think people should once and for all understand how horrible slavery was, and just because “Africans” and Arabs and people in the antiquity did it, it’s not an excuse. First of all, it’s wrong. If it’s wrong to kill and enslave a man, you don’t get a pass if someone else did before you. Plus- and I don’t try to minimize suffering of slaves in antiquity or those enslaved by non-whites – but whites often see western civilization as the best, completely fair, respecting human rights, etc, etc- and they were the ones who did this. And last, but not the least, in most of the other forms of slavery, you were able to buy your freedom, and/or you were enslaved for a given period of time (3, 7 years). Also, if you were an educated individual, or a craftsman, or you had any special skills, you were able to continue practising your craft or become a tutor in someone’s family (so I guess your live was a little bit less horrible). Not here.

Now, I disagree about skin colour as an important difference: enslaving humans based on skin colour isn’t any better or worse than enslaving them based on religion, or ethnic group, or any other criteria.

There were only certain African groups that captured slaves and considering the amount of that population, I don’t agree that Africans including Arabs did most of the slave catching.

But even if they were, Hathor, so what? It doesn’t change the fact whites were ones enslaving those people. They didn’t take them to America and free them.

But it is important to note that, in any case, “Africans” didn’t capture “their own”- they captured their enemies. Africa is not uniform. Hey, white Americans and Russians are whites, and yet, they were (are?) enemies. And you can even say most of the Arabs are whites (they are Caucasians) so someone could say whites are attacking “their own”.

“So what? It doesn’t change the fact whites were ones enslaving those people. They didn’t take them to America and free them

Indeed a very valid point.

There is another point to this but this time from the ‘slavers side’

Unfortunately leaving aside other political issues like prisoner of wars from other tribes, ‘pariahs of society’ who were to become slaves. This was a very lucrative business that any unscrupulous character could profit immensely from.

Well, I know there are some people who think whites have cruelty and a need to enslave others in their blood. But these things are not born with someone’s white skin; they are products of society, politics and other things that give them power. Indeed, there were whites who were enslaved/suffered by the hands or other whites and non-whites. And yes, there a non-whites who captured their enemies, and Arabs who enslaved people, etc etc.

But to use this argument to derail any discussion about this specific slavery is not a good thing, and it shows basic misunderstanding. So what if Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had slaves? In what way, exactly, does this make transatlantic slavery less horrible? Especially given the fact you were often able to free yourself in ancient slavery and you were often enslaved on a given period of time (3 years for example).

“But to use this argument to derail any discussion about this specific slavery is not a good thing, and it shows basic misunderstanding”

However, it is needed though, because if you look at ‘Western civilisation’ from a historical point of view. There is no remorse nor has there been regard to slavery, and in this sense the derailment (ie ‘red herring’) becomes all the more vital as a tool.

I best stop here because I can see myself heading towards reparation ha ha ha…

Mira,
I said what I said, because I am so tired of the commentary being, but Black people did it too. These comments not only are made during a post about slavery, they are made even in the context of explaining the legacy slavery left or how it has psychologically effected Black people to this day. I am sure there will some comment here that will blame all slavery on Black people, as if it is only in Black’s DNA.

“From my memory most of those in the Caribbean are from what would be Ghana and Nigeria (Benin).”

Generally true, although I wouldn’t lump all of the Caribbean together because they don’t all have the same origins. For example, many that were brought to Jamaica were the Kongo, who reside in present-day Zaire, Congo, and Angola.

“Whilst

Brazil – Congo”

Not necessarily. There were plenty of those from present-day Ghana and Nigeria (mainly Yoruba and Ewe) that were sent to Brazil, as well as others.

No one knew exactly where they came from, but comparing pictures of people in my geography books, people that were from the cotton states looked more like thy came from what we would call the Congo. Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Virginia looked more like people from West Africa. Every now and then I would see people with features that looked as if they were from Kenya, like Thomas Mboya’s people. I had met several Kenyans when I was in high school. I know that there are several different groups in Kenya, that why I made a reference. My paternal grandfather looked much like he came from Ghana. He was only one generation out of slavery. But more than likely his ancestors came from Sierra Leone, because he might be called a Geechee.

I said what I said, because I am so tired of the commentary being, but Black people did it too. These comments not only are made during a post about slavery, they are made even in the context of explaining the legacy slavery left or how it has psychologically effected Black people to this day. I am sure there will some comment here that will blame all slavery on Black people, as if it is only in Black’s DNA.

I understand you. I didn’t reply to your comment to argue with you, but to agree with you.

Since this post is the one discussing the slave sources, I wanted to dismiss the whole “africans/arabs/whoever did it too!” argument before it started.

Any time the full comprehension and realization of the transatlantic slave trade is made bare, then discussed.

It never fails to amaze me how justifiable it can be made to be seen if it can be argued or proved that Africans were also complicit in this too.

Lets “suppose” this was true. SO WHAT!!!!????

What does it say about the so called humanity of the Europeans? Where was the so called moral superiority?

The fact that they deemed this was OK for 500 years must surely say something about the mind of Europeans?

And perhaps someone can tell me where is the historical evidence of Africans or any other peoples of colour systematically brutalizing, dehumanizing and lawfully disregarding the lives of human beings in this way for 100’s of years?

There isn’t any!!! The closest being perhaps the Jews during the 2nd world war but guess what? Thats was Europeans again!!!!

This was a very lucrative business that any unscrupulous character could profit immensely from.

There’s pretty good information that
most of the primitive capital accumulation in Brazil came from slave-trading rather than mining or sugar-making.

With regards to the trans-atlantic slave trade, here’s some basic facts that people often forget about it that are really necessary:

1) It occurred roughly over a 400 year period and the locus of slaving moved several times during that period. Speaking very generally, it tended to move south and east as time went on.

2) Different European and African peoples were highly active in it at different periods.

3) Technologies of slave trading changed radically during the period.

4) Relatively speaking, what’s today the U.S. was a late-comer to the game. It thus got few slaves from the northern parts of Africa and those that it did get tended to be concentrated in places of early colonization such as the North Carolina seaboard.

So to say “such-and-such a region got slaves from such-and-so a point in Africa” is generally a simplification.

The slave trade was truly tragic, I can’t begin to imagine what kind of depraved minds would pack their fellow human beings in such conditions, words fail me.
Blacks can commit a thousand crimes, it won’t in any way match the horror of what Europeans have done to them. Never!
Enslaving West Africa, colonizing the rest, the supine attitude of Europeans towards Africa makes me sick!

There is one aspect of the trade journey that is not mentioned here and was so horrific that Malcolm X suggested it had to be written out from nearly all the history books.

I had posted what he had to say on this matters on here – can’t quite remember where though)??

Seasoning Camps

“Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean.[54] Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal.

The enslaved people were tortured for the purpose of “breaking” them (like the practice of breaking horses) and conditioning them to their new lot in life.

Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. All in all, 5 million Africans died in these camps reducing the final number of Africans to about 10 million.[54]”

“Our people weren’t brought right to this country. They were dropped off in the West Indian islands in the Caribbean…

Why?… This was the breaking-in grounds. They would break them in down there.

When they broke them in, they would bring the ones whose spirit had been broken on to America. They had all kinds of tactics for breaking them in. They bred fear into them, for one thing…

And this is why they took the role of the ‘slave maker’ out of history. It was so criminal that they don’t even dare to write about it…

I read in one book how the slave maker used to take a pregnant woman…and make her watch as her man would be tortured and put to death.

[Another] had trees that he planted in positions where he would bend them and tie them, and then tie the hand of a Black man to one, a hand to the other, and his legs to two more, and he’d cut the rope. And when he cut the rope, the tree would snap up and pull the arm of the [slave] right out of his socket, pull him up into four different parts.
I’ll show you books where you can read it, they write about it.

They used to take a Black woman who would be pregnant and tie her up by her toes, let her be hanging head down, and they would take the knife and cut her stomach open, let that Black unborn child fall out, and then stomp its head, in the ground.

I’ll show you books where they write about this… ‘Slave Trade by Spears; From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin; Negro Family in U.S by Frazier touches upon it…
‘Anti-slavery’ by Dwight Lowell Dummond…”

Malcolm X’ on Afro-American History is one of the greatest, most accessible, books I’ve ever read. It would make a fine introductory reader for any African-American (especially male) wishing uplift themselves out of mental slavery. Indeed, it should be required reading in all US prisons.

Re: seasoning camps. The Wiki sez that South American slaves were put through this:

Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean. Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal.

Sorry, I call bulls$t on that. South American slaves were not shipped to Carribean before being sent to Brazil – and let’s face it, 95% of South American slaves came through Brazil. Either Meltzer got it wrong or (more likely) the Wikidiot quoting him got it wrong.

Supine still stands, don’t play professor with me, you’ll only fail.
I used the metaphorical ‘supine’ hand as in a ‘gimme gimme’ attitude to Africa.
Secondly, I meant it as an indifference, careless, lazy, negligent(insert other meanings of the word) attitude to Africa.

The thought that Whites could be incredibly evil to Blacks pains him so much that he has to reject the contention.

What he attempts to do is clever – well not really -. He rejects the contention of ‘seasoning camps’ but remains strangely silence on the brutality devised by the slaveowners. Almost as if that part is at least true, but he does not have an argument, or anything by which he can knockk that idea down, otherwise he would.

As a lecturer one would expect him to draw on his expertise to critique it.

However, because he has probably have not heard this thing before (here read too arrogant or a ‘troll’ to admit it). He has to suggests that Meltzer has it wrong.

However, this creates its own problems. Since if Meltzer is wrong. Then Malcolm X is also wrong and the references that he cited would also be incorrect.

This is one of the problems that can occur when you are schooled (or here read fooled) in ‘eurocentricism’ and over-rely on authors who are steeped in that tradition.

I am not surprised taht a person like you would therefore use Hugh Thomas as your reference. As the Americans might say a Johnny-come-lately to the scene.

And here we go further, one more reference to add to the list, in addition to the ones quoted by Malcolm X:

“Seasoning was a process conducted during the Atlantic slave trade for the purpose of “breaking” slaves. The practice conditioned the African captives for their new lot in life, newly arrive black African captive would have to be trained into the daily rigors that await them in the Americas. This training was carried out on Plantations in the Caribbean such as Jamaica. Then the conditioned captives were taken to the American south to be worked as a slave.

Estimated mortality rates for this process vary from 7% to 50% with duration between one and four years.[1]

Most slaves destined for island or South American plantations were likely to be put through this ordeal, though slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. [2]

The process of seasoning had a strong profit motive for example, as economists state the average price of adult male slaves in Jamaica in the 1770’s was 52% higher than “New Negroes” (Africans who came to a New World).[3]

References

1. Kiple, K.F. The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History, p. 65.

2. Meltzer, Milton. Slavery: A World History. Da Capo Press, 1993.

3. Trevor, B. and Morgan, K. The Dynamics of the Slave Market and Slave Purchasing Patterns in Jamaica, 1655-1788. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 58, No. 1, New Perspectives on the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Jan., 2001), pp. 205-228

In a nutshell, Thad is the ‘White liberal’ that Steve Biko warned about, and even Malcolm X also.

He is that ‘Great White Man’, do not worry about the other one (with that tag) who has taken up the ‘White Man’s Burden’ to teach the docile natives, their history and how best they should obtain their freedom also as part of the process, but yet at the same time maintaining the same White world order.

While comments from myself , MerriMay, Paisley, J, etc.. attempt to reflect on the culpability or responsibility of Europeans for behaving in this way…TIME AND TIME AGAIN!!!

Others seem preoccupied with establishing the precise statistics of which slaves came from or were sent where..??

Why is this so important ???

This is the level of reflection. As if it were some “tragic”, unintentional vast migration of peoples which took place so many years ago, and where the true facts or statistics have become obscured over time. But it happened… As did say the Roman civilization or the industrial revolution which took place over many years both of which had their ups and downs!!!

Again these tired old reflections refuse to examine or challenge the mind or motives of a people who would allow and STILL CONTINUE to allow such abhorrent behavior and practices to continue today.

It may not be so OVERT as in the case of industrialized fellow human slavery 200 years ago but that uncaring mentality still lingers on in the form of cruelty and disregard for peoples of colour, animals, the Earths environment etc…

This is not simply a question of apportioning blame, guilt or extracting apologies from any one race of people; or mounting an argument for reparations (another discussion) its about recognizing, acknowledging and owning up to collective PAST actions and behaviors.

Such honest, personal, DEEP opening up reflections become the guiding determinants for the way we wish FUTURE collective actions and behaviors to be seen and implemented.

What are the signs that such a global humanitarianism or Earth centered holistic approach is taking place today ???

@MerriMayI used the metaphorical ‘supine’ hand as in a ‘gimme gimme’ attitude to Africa.
Secondly, I meant it as an indifference, careless, lazy, negligent(insert other meanings of the word) attitude to Africa.

What he attempts to do is clever – well not really -. He rejects the contention of ‘seasoning camps’ but remains strangely silence on the brutality devised by the slaveowners. Almost as if that part is at least true, but he does not have an argument, or anything by which he can knockk that idea down, otherwise he would.

No, I don’t reject the notion of seasoning camps. I reject the statement of the Wiki you linked us to, which claims that South American slaves were sent through seasoning camps in the CARRIBEAN.

Its not clear to me what you are saying here, or whether this is one of your mis-understandings??

It is being staed that some slaves taken from Africa went to the Caribbean so as to be ‘broken in like horses’ before they were then transported on to their final destination, so that they could become ‘good slaves’.

“According to the Wikipedia article only about one in six African city states and kingdoms that knew about the slave trade took part in it.”

I remember reading be that some of the African rulers were oblivious to the extent of the horrors of the slave trade, in its early period. Since once the slaves were sold that was it and this may make some sort of sense in the context of what slavery as an institution in Africa being ‘different’ to ‘chattel slavery’.

However, much later the rulers became fully cognizant of what was taking place, and in some instance rulers were held to ransom by the Colonial powers to provide slaves.

This is also another feature rarely discussed on why/how the slaves were provided.

Thad you really are a character, even though my ancestors in South Africa, were not subject to slavery, but of a colonial sort- a separate thread I’ll concede, it still pains me greatly to read about what fellow blacks went through.
Interesting observation that J has made about you, your complete indifference to it, the complete absence of outrage on your part speaks volumes. The hell with your geographical trail of slaves because as usual you bulldoze over others’ very valid points.
I’m not saying tear you hair out but for goodness sake where is the respect for these people???

I suppose this qualifies as commiseration on your part:

”As for the brutality of the situation, that is evident.”

WTH?

Why do you constantly undermine the integrity of a subject as historically atrocious with your crap?? If you have nothing meaningful to add, just gag it.
Which leads to my second point.
You like ‘lupine’ better?? Cobblers!!! You take it upon yourself to correct things that don’t even warrant it??
Your arrogance is as usual insulting!! I don’t care what you like!

Kiple (The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History) does not mention the majority of South American bound slaves heading through Carribean seasoning camps. In fact, he barely mentions South America AT ALL in his book and when he does, it’s as a comparative pole for his main focus: the Carribean. When he mentions slaves bound for South America via Jamaica, he’s talking about the Guyanas and some northern spanish colonies. This trade was a drop in the bucket compared to that of the rest of South America.

So no, Kiple does not sustain the hypothesis that most slaves bound for South America were put through Carribean seasoning camps.

Let’s turn to Meltzer. Like most English-language historians of slavery, he barely mentions South America or Brazil. This, in fact, is one of the reasons one needs to temper these early authors with “Johnny-come-latelies” like Thomas, who understand that most slavery took place under the Portuguese and Spanish flags. Early English-language authors were far too willing to take the experience of British colonies as some sort of pan-Atlantic norm.

Meltzer does not mention most South American slaves IN GENERAL being shipped through Carribean seasoning camps, certainly not on page 65 and, as far as I can see, nowhere else in the book.

On to Trevor and Morgan. They do indeed mention slaves being transhipped to South America from Jamaica, but again, only to the northern tier of colonies, particularly British Guyana (which makes some sense).

None of these sources thus sustain the hypothesis that most South American bound slaves went through Carribean seasoning camps before being resold to South America. As I said, that appears to be a wiki error created by injudicious copy-pasting from other internet articles.

Metzler is not wrong, he’s just been poorly quoted: most of the ENGLISH trade did indeed go through Jamaica. The English, however, weren’t selling slaves to Brazil, the America’s largest consumer of slaves.

With regards to Thomas, why J thinks an author should be dismissed just because he’s written more recently on a topic is beyond me. In general, more recent books have BETTER data than older books.

Here’s what Thomas has to say on the subject of “seasoning” in a South American context:

The main ports for receiving slaves in South America were Rio (for the Portuguese) and Caratenga (for the Spanish – far less than Rio, however: 3000 slaves a year at its peak). In both ports, slaves were dumped into holding baracks on the outskirts of town, where they were left until a buyer came along. In Rio, slaves at this point were more often “fattened up” than sadistically beaten. This wasn’t because slave dealers were nice guys and humanitarians: the horrors of the middle passage left many Africans on death’s door and every dead slave was that much less profit.

Nevertheless, deaths in these barracks continued at an astounding rate. So bad that mass cemeteries needed to be dug near the Valongo, Rio’s slave trading street (and these were rediscovered during urban improvement projects in the 20th century). Thomas remarks that slave traders SHOULD have taken much better care of their “wares”, if the logic was simple capitalism. However, even more modern research by Brazilian scholars, shows that the care given to slaves in barracks depended quite a lot on the general economy of the time.

A booming economy would mean huge demand and quick turnover. Under these conditions, slaves would spend little time in the Valongo barracks and even the sickest would be picked up by desperate planters and miners. Traders didn’t care much about slave health in boom conditions: turnover was far more important.

When the economy slowed down, however, quality became more important and care could increase in order to increase the “shelf-life” of the slave. In a really bad economic downturn, however, the trader could simply decide that costs for maintaining the slaves alive could outweigh their possible sale value and simply let them die.

There was nothing approximating an organized “seasoning camp” on the Valongo, however, where slaves were systematically tortured to ensure obedience. Again, not because the Portuguese slave dealers were nice guys but because it was too much effort and cost. Why bother? The trader wasn’t a conscientous employee of the Great White Conspiracy to Subdue the Negro: he was an independent businessman, looking to make as much money as he could, as quick as he could by selling human flesh and souls. In Brazil, that meant “get ’em in and get ’em out” as quick as possible. Teaching the slaves obedience was not the Brazilian slave trader’s problem: it was the slave master’s problem.

Thomas has this to say about Jamaica as a transshipment point:

English ports were more brutal and less hygenic, but slaves brought to Jamaica for sale in Spanish America tended to be treated better than those sold elsewhere.

“Seasoning” was more often than not a general process which supposedly lasted a year or two and began with the slave barracks in African ports. Slaves would pass through two or three hands before getting to their final owners and, as they passed along, they’d be brutually treated as a matter of course. This was generally not because of some specific, thought-out plan to break the slaves’ will: it was the inevitable by-product of treating human beings as merchandise. Of course, ANY rebellion under these sorts of conditions was met with immediate and brutal violence, but again, not because this was some well-oiled, death-camp like machine, but precisely because it wasn’t. It was very often a poorly organized venture in which huges sums of money were being floated and could be won or lost on a throw of destiny’s dice. A plague sweeping through a cargo of slaves could bankrupt a dealer in one fell swoop. As Abolition inched closer and it became ever more clear that the trade from Africa would one day be stopped, traders began cramming their boats to the decks with slaves. The conditions for rebellion were, as one can well imagine, ripe and rebellion was the thing slave traders feared most, precisely because they didn’t have full control over their human cargo. It was a constant promise.

Now, I’m not as well acquainted with late-18th century British slavery as I am with the Brazilian varieties, but if there were a people who could have seriously contemplated the organization necessary for “seasoning camps”, it definitely would have been the British. That Enlightenment ethic could very well have produced some rationalist attempt to set up a camp where slaves’ wills were systematically broken. I’m willing to accept that as a hypothesis, given more proof than a Wikipedia article which misquotes an author.

What is definitely a fact, given the state of our knowledge on this issue, is that the vast majority of South American slaves did not pass through Jamaica or any other Carribean camp: they came through Rio and Salvador. And there is no indication that I’ve seen that anything like these camps operated here.

Note that this doesn’t mean that Brazilian slavery was not brutal.

Now, Kwamla asks “Why is this so important?”

Because this is the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the black presence in the Americas, the very history that black people have been deprived of. If you want history, you have to accept that it doesn’t always play out in accordance with your prejudices. If yopu want to know what happened back then, you have to really look at it.

As I mentioned in Abagond’s post on the Cherokee Trail of Tears, glossing one or another act of inhumanity as The Holocaust does not help us understand what happened. Slavery, like Indian reservations, had a complex history and had its OWN PARTICULAR coordinates of oppressions and brutalities. Imagining Dantesque slave seasoning camps where all slaves are systematically tortured to incur obedience leads us away from the REAL brutalities which occurred. As metaphor, the “death camp” has some explicatory power: as history, it confounds explanation and ends up creating myth.

And isn’t it one of black america’s complaints that too much of black history has been shrouded in myth?

Here’s one side effect mythologization produces:

Here in Rio (and in Salvador) we had an institution that was as bad or worse than the “seasoning camp”: the public slave prison, where masters could send unruly slaves to be tortured. Of course, if we’re going to get hung up on the myth of Brazilian slaves in Jamaican seasoning camps, we’ll never be able to discuss the REAL institutions which were used to break rebellious slaves, are we?

This returns to my wife’s article on the Black American Imperial Eye (https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/black-brazil-in-the-black-gringo-gaze/) : concentrating on the English-speaking transatlantic slavery and black experience as the norm creates a virtuality where (in this case) Jamaica becomes far more important than the Valongo, even though far many more black Americans’ ancestors (and J, please note that “America” does not mean the U.S. in this instance) came through the Valongo than through Kingston.

Brazilian black history is considered to be so secondary, so in fact inconcievable, that even to bring up the simple FACT that Brazilian slaves weren’t transhipped through Jamaica is enough to get one castigized as a violence-denying racist.

“The discussion about where slaves come from actually dispels the myth that all Africans participated in the slave trade.”

Again…you miss the point Hathor. It doesn’t really matter!!!

So what if they did? The point is what does it say about a specific group of people – Europeans – who unequivocally endorsed this mass trade of human beings??

So lets say most African nations actively played a part in capturing and selling slaves to Europeans does that make this any less of a de-humanizing act on the part of Europeans? Could it then be seen as just a bit of fair trade that got out of hand?

But of course then you would have to agree that if it had been the other way round. That is if African’s had discovered Europe they would have similarly entered in to deals with various European countries and started shipping white slaves back to Africa?

And if we could establish that the majority of European countries actively colluded with the African traders then this would have made things Ok. It would have been fair trade again? Both sides just as equally to blame as the other

One more historically example: Japan attacks the US in the battle of Pearl Harbour so the US drops the Atomic bomb on one of Japans major cites killing and injuring 100,000s of people. This was justified YES?. Because we can prove historically accurately here that Japan did attack the US destroying much equipment and many 100’s of US lives.

Most slaves destined for island or South American plantations were likely to be put through this ordeal…

Note: most slaves.

J interprets that to mean:

It is being staed that some slaves taken from Africa went to the Caribbean so as to be ‘broken in like horses’ before they were then transported on to their final destination…

Note: some slaves.

I have no objection to the idea that some slaves went through “seasoning camps” in Jamaica, beyond the fact that it would be interesting to see a primary source on this, rather than what appears to be a Wiki misquote of a secondary source cut and pasted from another internet source.

I DO object to what the Wiki quite clearly says, that most south-american bound slaves went through these Jamaican camps. That would only make sense in terms of the ENGLISH slave trade to South America, which was a small drop in a very large bucket.

@MerriMayThe hell with your geographical trail of slaves because as usual you bulldoze over others’ very valid points.

First of all, my making I point hardly prevents anyone else here from doing so.

Secondly, the only point I’m criticizing is the idea that the majority of South American slaves passed through Carribean seasoning camps. That is simply wrong. All points, of course, are valid but “valid” does not mean “correct”.

So no, I’m not preventing anyone’s opinion from being heard and no, I’m not “invalidating”.

Interesting observation that J has made about you, your complete indifference to it, the complete absence of outrage on your part speaks volumes.

So outrage is the measure of correct history, is it. MerryMay?

Look, right above me, right now as I type, a Military Police helicopter is flying towards Santo Amaro favela. It’s been buzzing the favela for an hour now and has twice exchanged automatic weapons fire with residents.

I have things right in front of me to get outraged over.

When I look at history, I look at it to try to see how we got to this situation HERE. I find that outrage doesn’t help much in that task. It doesn’t help the dead of two centuries ago and – more often than not – it blinds me to very important clues.

“Outrage” comes from a base feeling that one believes one already knows the truth. I know very few truths and most of the ones I thought I knew have not withstood the light of reason.

I believe that slavery was evil: that is a basic truth I hold to. I DO NOT believe – as most Americans seem to do – that having classified something as evil, I can now be on my merry and make believe whatever the hell I want about it. To me, if something is evil, it requires even GREATER attention and less presumption. And presumption is precisely what outrage generates.

It matters to me, when I see it being used to deflect the discussions.

What you say is not in dispute as far as I am concerned and I understand what you are saying.

I am not the kind of person who wants history rewritten in the pursuit of a racist agenda. When you have Black folks saying “Africans did it too” and Black folks have benefited from slavery, being an apologist for white privileged conservatives, I consider this to be a serious problem for Black folk.

Abagond started this post with a reference to the changes that the Texas board of education made for the criteria of their textbooks. Slavery is now a euphemism. Arizona has passed bill to forbid the schools from teaching any ethnic studies. Do you think that history now taught in Arizona will now be inclusive?

If this trend continues, it wont matter as you say, because there will nothing of slavery taught. Not even in the context of the constitution. The Texas BOE also is minimizing Thomas Jefferson and some other founders, base on their religious beliefs. So I can’t see the topic of 3/5ths ever coming up.

Do you think preteens are going to take upon themselves to become scholars?

You have a curious deposition towards taking most comments by others here on a personal level. This has resulted in you having to write copious responses to defend your apparent “sleights” at the hands of MerriMay, J and possible others.

If you could leave this aside for one moment as, again, I would say to you its not really that important in the context of what we are discussing here: The Transatlantic slave trade

Your major contribution appears to be:

“…the only point I’m criticizing is the idea that the majority of South American slaves passed through Carribean seasoning camps. That is simply wrong…”

Now maybe you have made others but lets just agree this is your main concern.

You have also commented: “I believe that slavery was evil”

Well that might be so but on the basis of what you’ve contributed to this discussion (without the divergence into defending personal attacks or insults) it s doesn’t really convey, to me, any real “FEELING” sense of this.

Its all too easy to get caught up in personal side issues we deem to be more important because the real issues we fear may be too debilitating or uncomfortable to bear.

The experience you describe in Texas is along similar lines to how The Transatlantic slave trade is taught in many other countries. I know this is true in the UK where I am based.

The basic assumption here is that the actual trade or traffic is played down, deemphasized or even as you report omitted altogether.

This were the Internet and blogs like this come in. At least if preteens want to find this sort of information they can. Years ago before the age of the Internet it all too easy to claim ignorance (unless of course you were scholarly enough to read books!!) This need no longer be the case.

Until of course Black/African peoples start re-writing their own histories in all areas of media. But isn’t this very blog evidence of that very same thing already happening?

Since it appears you seem to support the contention in essence when you say:

“I DO object to what the Wiki quite clearly says, that MOST south-american bound slaves went through these Jamaican camps. =That would only make sense in terms of the ENGLISH slave trade to South America, which was a small drop in a very large bucket”.

Can you just clarify that the word MOST in capitals in the aforesaid is what this discussion is all about??

And if this is the case, can you this time provide any evidence?? Please note that if you cannot find any I will not use it either as an opportunity ‘to score points’ either, something which you are won’t to do

Just to say do not worry about the providing of evidence. I think I can sum up the problem of the discussion.

1. Wikipedia quote

“Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps FOUND THROUGHOUT THE CARIBBEAN. Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations [including Guyana which is in South America my emphasis]) were likely to be put through this ordea”l.

=

2. Thad

I DO object to what the Wiki quite clearly says, that most south-american bound slaves went through these Jamaican camps

3. Please observe what the wiki quote states ‘FOUND THROUGHOUT MOST OF THE CaRIBBEAN’

Usually I would close with ‘I hope this clarifies’, but I doubt if this will be the case for you.

“Of course, if we’re going to get hung up on the myth of Brazilian slaves in Jamaican seasoning camps, we’ll never be able to discuss the REAL institutions which were used to break rebellious slaves, are we?”

You are the only one whohas reached this conclusion through your own faulty reasoning skills.

It took a month to get to Brazil, two months or more to get to North America.

Ships were packed so full that you had just enough room to lay down. Sometimes you did not even have enough room to roll over and lay on your side. It was dark and hot and airless and you lived in shit, piss, vomit and menstrual blood. The ship’s crew raped the women and girls. You had little to eat but even worse you had little to drink: fresh water was extremely limited on the high seas.

It’s a shame we believe this story without thought. If we really think about it, this story makes no sense. We are talking about a story of people walking up to 500 miles, being placed on board ships and living in these conditions for a month or more and everyone commenting says nothing about this passage. Its as if this is taken for granted. People living in this condition would not need to be seasoned, they would already be broken. People living in these conditions for a month or more would soon die upon reaching the Americas from various ailments. People living in these conditions would be very hard to sell on the auction blocks, that is what they were being transported for. To be sold. Just think about this! We need to look at the amount of Black people already living in the Americas that were enslaved. We need to look at how long we were living in the Americas long before the birth of a Christopher Columbus. We need examine the truth and begin to dispel this yarn accepted as truth. To think that we came from Africa under such conditions is not a testament to our strength, its a testament of our acceptance of another fairytale and never thinking logic of this deeply rooted lie.

You have a curious deposition towards taking most comments by others here on a personal level. This has resulted in you having to write copious responses to defend your apparent “sleights” at the hands of MerriMay, J and possible others.

Well, let’s see. After I made an innocent play on words (“lupine” instead of “supine”) which, in fact, supported her point, MerriMay…

1) Told me to go to hell;
2) Said I could care less about slavery;
3) Said what I write is crap;
4) Told me to shut up;
5) And then (cherry on the top) called me arrogant.

I wouldn’t call that an “apparent slight”, Kwamla: I’d call that a serious of directed slights that were obviously intended to be taken on a personal level.

I’m not sure how you could read that differently.

Well that might be so but on the basis of what you’ve contributed to this discussion (without the divergence into defending personal attacks or insults) it s doesn’t really convey, to me, any real “FEELING” sense of this.

That’s because I disagree with the general American opinion that feeling gives one extra validity, Kwamla. I’d rather go for precision in my history, thanks. I’ll leave the “feeling” to the likes of the Texas Board of Education.

Very simple, J: the Wiki article you cite says most South African-bound slaves headed through seasoning camps in the Carribean.

I disagree.

It is not a convoluted argument J. Not even close.

Here’s the quote:

Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Carribean. Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves destined for island or South American plantations were likely to be put through this ordea”l.

It seems very clear to me that, following basic rules of English grammar, the phrase “found throughout the Carribean” refers to the seasoning camps, not the slaves. The immediately following sentance then specifically says that slaves shipped to North American bypassed the camps while those shipped to south america didn’t.

The clear intent of the phrase is that most slaves bound for South America passed through the camps. Can’t get any clearer than that.

The problem is that this is only true in the context of English slave trading, which is of course Meltzer’s focus. The wiki article does not say that. It says “most slaves bound for South America” passed through the camps.

Not true. Most slaves bound for South America disn’t go through the Carribean and weren’t sold by the English.

EnSayn says:People living in this condition would not need to be seasoned, they would already be broken.

Spot on. Slave suicide was one of the major worries of Brazilian planters, right up there with rebellion.

People living in these conditions for a month or more would soon die upon reaching the Americas from various ailments. People living in these conditions would be very hard to sell on the auction blocks, that is what they were being transported for. To be sold. Just think about this!

Mostly correct.

At least with regards to Brazilian slavery, if any thought at all was given to recently arrived slaves, it wasn’t to tie them up and whip them to break their spirits: it was to feed them, clean them and fatten them up a bit for the auction block.

That said, very little thought AT ALL was given to the slaves, especially in times of high market demand. So many of them DID die in the barracks upon reaching the Americas and were simply written off as a net loss.

What is it with you and your inherent inability to understand the contextual sequence of what is written:

Let me clear this up. YOU imposed yourself on what I was saying, by seeming to agree with me at the same time being patronising by substitung a perfectly valid /applicable word(supine) and inserting your own as the better of the two(lupine). If that is not arrogant, show me what is!
Mind you, that wouldn’t make sense in the way that I intended, if you carry on that way, why don’t YOU compose your own narrative wherein you can do as you please with your text.
Do me a favor though. With the remaining 4 on your list I want you to quote me on where I told YOU specifically to shut up, go to hell, your writing is crap, and you don’t care about slavery.
When/if you’ve done so I will go on to illustrate to you, your continued lack of comprehension towards what I write.

but where is your evidence?? A question you like to ask of me so often

Evidence for what? That Brazil was the world’s largest slave importer? Or that Brazil didn’t import slaves through Jamaica?

If the second, how am I supposed to logically prove a negative?

Can you quote what Meltzer says on this very issue??

Nope. Back at home now and not at the Museum.

I would add also that I only introduced this point to enhance what Abagond had said here regarding the middle passage, especially as this part of history is not that well known.

What you have said here thus far has not changed or minimised this fact.

Yeah, and what I have said here thus far has also not proven that the Holocaust is a fake.

Know why?

Because what I’ve said was not meant to prove that the holocaust is a fake, nor minimize the horrors of the middle passage. It was also not meant to prove that you are still beating your wife.

What I said was only meant to prove that the idea that most South American slaves were transhipped through Jamaican seasoning camps was bulls@#&. The wiki article you cite was dead wrong on that point.

Period.

@MerriMay

Let me clear this up. YOU imposed yourself on what I was saying, by seeming to agree with me at the same time being patronising by substitung a perfectly valid /applicable word(supine) and inserting your own as the better of the two(lupine). If that is not arrogant, show me what is!

I was AGREEING with your basic point by substituting an even more predatory adjective. Kindly take your tortured presumptions elsewhere.

I want you to quote me on where I told YOU specifically to shut up, go to hell, your writing is crap, and you don’t care about slavery.

Now, considering that you have taken my innocent comment about “lupine” rather than “supine” Europeans to be a deadly arrogant insult, I can’t help but woner what you’d say if ANYONE said ANY of the above things to you.

For a woman who is oh-so-sensitive to perceived slights, you certainly have no problem at all insulting people.

Ok. Thaddeus. I am going to put it to you that you make some valid points about:

.”..the idea that the majority of South American slaves passed through Carribean seasoning camps. That is simply wrong…”

And that perhaps in the process of making this point you’ve encountered some slight abuse. Examples of which you have “precisely” documented. But then perhaps this may also be valid for you to consider here. The attention to precision you so rigorously strive for, lets say virtuously and admirably, as a worthwhile scholarly pursuit leaves no room for the immense “human” or “emotional” consequences of the very subject we are discussing.

“The Transatlantic slave trade…”

You yourself have commented:

“That’s because I disagree with the general American opinion that feeling gives one extra validity, Kwamla. I’d rather go for precision in my history, thanks. I’ll leave the “feeling” to the likes of the Texas Board of Education.”

This is a fair point and you of course are entitled to your own opinion. But you also conceded:

“…I believe that slavery was evil: that is a basic truth I hold to…”

Now for me there appears to be a “disconnection” between your explorations of this aspect of the trade and your rigorous assessment of the origins of Brazilian slavery

Its actual precisely this “disconnection” which I was attempting to convey in my own postings about the mentality (historically) of the European mind which in seeking to engage with cultures – not just peoples, but animals and the environment as well – reduces them to little more than components or numbers which can be “precisely” stacked or arranged according to the prevailing beliefs.

Maybe this is where perhaps categorizations of “arrogance” “uncaring” or even “racism” may appear.

For this reason the actual horrors and practices of the slave trade very rarely surface (except in discussions like these of course!!) but then these are exactly the issues that need to be discussed and come to terms with in dealings and interactions with all cultures.

You know Thad you have a tendency to start a fire and cry foul when you get burned!

Most people just affirm ‘I agree’ etc, but you had to play the one-upmanship, and note the arrogance here.
”don’t you mean ‘lupine’ ”
which totally discredits what I’m trying to say. Are you a mind reader now? Why don’t you save that patronising for your classes. Even after I clarify and point out your wrongdoing you continue unperturbed
‘I still like lupine better’
It’s that bullheaded attitude that sticks in my craw, and why you continue to be at loggerheads with people…and hence derail.
Don’t piggyback off an idea and declare it your own as superior.

I see the blame YT crew is out in full swing(The ocean must be in low tide…smh)

Look it was a horrible thing, but you must also accept the fact that Europeans are the ones who STOPPED IT!!!

You people only cry afoul when YT does it. The double standard here is downright pathetic….Arabs and Africans are doing it to this day!! but not a peep, YT does it and the victim mentality surfaces most tick…smh

We all know that non-white people hold us to a higher standard, because they all know the great things we’ve done for poor tribals, orphans, disaster relief, ect…..But please stop whining about the slave trade and only on YTs end of it…ok?

I’m sorry there will never be ANY REPERATIONS for AA, so please stop with the victim mentality, thank you.

Are you sure that’s it? I recently read the same book (albeit in Spanish), and it was mostly a repetitive look at the atrocities of the Europeans toward the indigenous peoples. Every chapter goes on about native people being killed, raped, burned, etc. Casas posited himself as being “charitable” towards the native peoples, though he was really just anti-Spanish government on behalf of the church, and didn’t really do anything concrete to stop the maltreatment of the indigenous, save a debate or two. I’ve only read the original though, so I don’t know what differences edited and translated versions have.

I’ve never asked Abagond to censor anyone, the same cannot be said for you.
Your mockery won’t work with me, you’d think your numerous feuds with people on this board would tell you something about your conduct, you remain clueless.
If you read back to how this started you’ll see a pattern with you.
You’re courting the moderator yourself by insinuating that I attacked you, yet Abagond hasn’t obliged, so I have not broken any rules. A commenter bit the dust recently for exactly this slick tactic. Nice try though. And you call me a hypocrite…smdh

Yeah, well, J, like I said on another post, I remain skeptical until someone can show me HOW it’s going to work. International law, which you’ve refered to on this topic, does not cover reparations by nations and, even if it did, would be ignored by the U.S.

So even if reparations would get its day in court in The Hague, and would by some miracle be adjuged favorably, all the U.S. has to do is thumb its nose at International Law, as it has repeatedly done in the past.

The only way to get the U.S. to give reparations would be to force it to do so. If the assorted black movements trying for reparations have THAT much power, why not just take the coutry’s government over instead?

So yeah, unless you or someone out there can show a pragmatic and logical road to reparations, I will continue to qualify reparations as a pipe dream and a waste of time.

Since this topic is slavery, and reparations can be tied somewhat therein.

I am afraid I do not understand your logic here.

If groups of people are entitled to make a claim under something which is in the law. If these people believe they can appeal to the conscience of the Government, and the Government will acquiese. Then why should they not do so??

The only possible way to find out if it is a ‘pipe dream’ or not is for these groups to make such a claim, and see what the outcome is.

If groups of people are entitled to make a claim under something which is in the law. If these people believe they can appeal to the conscience of the Government, and the Government will acquiese. Then why should they not do so??

Correct. But reparations are a claim made under international law and (in spite of what right-wing conspiracy loonies think) THERE IS NO WORLD GOVERNMENT!

International law covers basically two things: issues all nations have more-or-less agreed upon (and even then, it covers them poorly) and post-war retributions.

So, yeah, reparations would be a good idea IF…

A) You could get the presumed criminal in this case (i.e. the U.S. government) to go along with the idea that it should pay out billions or trillions to the descendents of slavery, or…

B) You could beat the U.S. government into submission.

I think we can agree that if your strategy for change boils down to not only convincing your oppressors to empathize with you BUT ALSO get them to freely hand over billions, it’s not a very practical strategy.

And if you’ve got the power to BEAT the U.S., why not just take it over and screw reparations? No need to ask for a paycheck if you own the bank, is there?

My point has nothing to do with whether people have a right to appeal. They have a right to waste their time however they please.

My argument is that I’m not going along with this strategy until someone can show me how it has a chance in hell of working. I’d rather waste my time posting here or looking at The Huffington Post.

The only possible way to find out if it is a ‘pipe dream’ or not is for these groups to make such a claim, and see what the outcome is.

No??????????????

By that same logic, the only way you can find out that you can’t fly is to jump off a building while flapping your arms.

If the anti-racist movement was blessed with a surfeit of cash, time, energy and talented activists, I’d say “Whatever. Might as well go for it and it can’t hurt”.

The fact of the matter, J, is that we are facing a huge wave of racist reaction – the worst in decades – and time, money and energy is short on the ground.

That is why I think “reparations” is a useless game being played by people who should know better.

I wouldn’t know for sure–I read the book for a class in the spring semester and I’m pretty sure I sold it on Amazon, but I’m pretty sure the one I read didn’t say anything about slave labor at all–at that point the Spaniards were interested in taking the land and resources from the indigenous peoples, then returning to Spain (as “Indianos, meaning people who made their fortune in the New World). It was a while before people actually decided to stay and create colonies.

Per this link, Casas supported the importation of Africans, then later recanted and became an advocate for them, and it lists two books by him, but it’s Wikipedia (which I don’t count as a credible source) so who knows? 🙂

I still am having problems understanding your reasoning in all of this.

1. Its not quite clear why you made reference to U.S being ‘criminals’. The issue of reparations would essentially be monetary – Its not a war trial of the US??

2. As for anti-racists and those fighting reparations there is a big gulf between the two, and that is why I made the connection between reparations and international law.

3. Its not also clear to me how you can reconcile reparations as an issue across the world and Blacks acting within the remit of the law to obtain it?? Surely you are not advocating that Blacks pick up guns and obtain the monetary that way??

4. As for people wasting their time, to use your own words. I am sure there were many who said that about Martin Luther King. In the real world of ‘politics liberation’ the only way to know if something politically is going to succeed or fail is to endeavour. There is absolutely no other way of knowing. Furthermore any fight for liberation is a piecemal journey, with many loses but also many victories. Thus ‘victories’ can be gained in other areas, even if the ultimate goal of repartion may not be completed.

5. Finally there appears an attempt here inadvertently or otherwise to deny Black people a fundamental right that all other oppressed nations have the right to ie make reparation claim. We always see this type of thing in the White Supremacy World. In the West they create ‘War trials’, to deal with those not followingthe status quo, whilst in South Africa they have a ‘Reconciliation Commission’.

Thad’s comments were given as reason to why repartions should not be given and he made mention of White’s people reactions etc.

This is the red herring, which you quoted when citing Thad:

“I AGREE WITH THAD THAT REPARATIONS MIGHT LEAD TO BAD ATTITUDES AMONG WHITES, because they would think they don’t own blacks anything anymore”.

Furthermore this is not how racism, genocide etc or what I would call White Supremacy works. Its not a case of what or as the case Blacks may do, but rather what those endorsing White Supremacy have as their agenda.

I wanted to say that the question of reparations is not about “solving problems”; I do see them as war reparations.

I guess I was answering/posting my opinion on Thad’s comments on reparations. Unlike him, I think blacks should receive reparations, so that is the part of his post that I don’t agree with. But I do agree that reparations would not solve any racial issues/racism; but that is ok, because the point of reparations is not to solve problems, end racism or anything like that.

Technically I’m still on vacation, but not with the family anymore, and yes it went very well. 🙂

Las Casas pretty much followed the path of most of the clergy in the New World (though for some reason he gets more recognition as a champion of human rights)–some felt pulled to defend the humanity of indigenous peoples, but inevitably the Church ended up on the side of the government because they got money out of the deal.

On a related note, I’d recommend the move “The Last Supper” (“La ultima cena”, with an accent on the “u”) to anyone interested in slavery outside of the US. It’s set on a sugar plantation in Cuba in the late 1700s and came out either a year after or a year before “Roots”–it fits with that (mini) trend of films exploring the atrocities/hypocrisy of slavery. I’m pretty sure you can find it (with English subtitles) online.

1. Its not quite clear why you made reference to U.S being ‘criminals’. The issue of reparations would essentially be monetary – Its not a war trial of the US??

Why does “criminal” mean “war” to you in this context? The only mention of war is that, AFAIK, the only time international law has dealt with reparations against a nation is after one has LOST a war and the international legal process is in the hands of the victors. To wit, Germany after WWII. Reparations are also occasionally judged in trade and fishing disputes because both sides have an interest in keeping within a general international system which may someday rule in their favor.

But never, to my knowledge, has any international court rules that a country pay reparations for evil-doing and said country paid them without a war occurring.

3. Its not also clear to me how you can reconcile reparations as an issue across the world and Blacks acting within the remit of the law to obtain it?? Surely you are not advocating that Blacks pick up guns and obtain the monetary that way??

Personally, I’d think blacks would have a much better chance that way – though still not a very good one. As for “acting within the remit of the law”, seeing as how international law does not deal with this issue, how is that going to occur? There IS no international law on this issue, J, so you can’t be acting in the remit of it.

Here’s an example: Durban conference calls for reparations. Pretty much every major power pulls out of Durban. How is this going to come in front of international courts, given that the countries who run that system are the same ones who won’t listen to the argument for reparations?

4. As for people wasting their time, to use your own words. I am sure there were many who said that about Martin Luther King.

Perhaps. But King had the U.S. Constitution to work with as well as the consciences of a good portion of white folks.

Segregation could actually be fought in the U.S. because there was a higher law: FEDERAL law. If there was an INTERNATIONAL law system actually backed up by force, then the reparations struggle might have a point. But you’ll recall that desegregation happened in many places in the U.S. south at bayonet point.

Law is useless without some police force to back it up. King played to the Federal government because he knew that was the only force that could slap the southern states in line. With the federal government on the side of desegregation, the racists would have to fold and this is indeed what happened.

Who are the reparations folks playing to? Who’s going to send bayonets to collect reparations?

Martians?

In the real world of ‘politics liberation’ the only way to know if something politically is going to succeed or fail is to endeavour.

Simply not true. There’s not a liberationist in the world who’ll say “Hey, waste your efforts on something that has absolutely zero chance of succeeding.” To use your King metaphor, it’s as if King decided to only work with, say, the Alabama and Mississippi state governments because, what the hell, anything could happen, right? Might as well start somewhere…

Any liberation strategist would agree: one needs to know how to pick one’s fights and attack where one can PLAUSIBLY achieve something. Great hopeless, romantic gestures are fine for movies, but they rarely get sh1$ done in real life.

Finally there appears an attempt here inadvertently or otherwise to deny Black people a fundamental right that all other oppressed nations have the right to ie make reparation claim.

J, no nation has that “right”. There is no “right” in international law besides might and that is a stone cold fact. Maybe 50 years from now, that will be different. But until you get a global police force of some kind, it’s utopian in the extreme to talk about “rights to reparations”.

Vietnam, for example, has a stone solid right to reparations for the damage it suffered at the hands of the U.S. As part of the 1973 peace treaty, the U.S. AGREED to pay reparations. It has broken that agreement for 37 years now and there’s not a damned thing Vietnam can do about it. Hell, they can’t even strip Henry Kissinger of his Nobel Peace Prize, let alone get their just reparations cash.

So how, exactly, do you propose “rights” in an international legal system that can’t safeguard them?

There ain’t no such animal.

We always see this type of thing in the White Supremacy World. In the West they create ‘War trials’, to deal with those not followingthe status quo, whilst in South Africa they have a ‘Reconciliation Commission’.

And that should tell you something basic: power, as Mao said, ultimately comes out of the barrel of a gun. If you don’t have a gun on your side, you can chant “reparations” until you’re blue in the face, but it ain’t gonna do you sh1$.

Now, the “gun” can be metaphorical, as it often was in the case of the U.S. Civil Rights movement, but it has to be there.

So that makes the loss ratio for that war something like 1,000 Serbian dead for every NATO bomb-armer who smashed his pinky with a torque wrench.

I wouldn’t place high hopes in recruiting Serbia as an effective ally against the U.S. in the international struggle for reparations, J – bastion of international human rights though the Serbs may be. [roll eyes]

Not sure whether much of what you say here is caught up in the world of language (semantics) or whether it applies correctly to the world.

I will stick with the former

“International law makes clear that victim groups have the right to remedies for harms done to them…In the past decade those engaged in these various struggles have begun to recognize their common cause and a global reparations movement has emerged”

J, I don’t know what apalls me the most: the fact that you link us to an Armenian genocide site as “proof” that reparations exist and work (even though the Armenians haven’t seen a penny), or the fact that you didn’t even read the post.

Said group’s pet legal PhD has this to say about reparations under international law (and remember, this is theory because no one has gained any yet):

International law makes clear that victim groups have the right to remedies for harms done to them. This applies to the Armenian Genocide for two reasons. First, the acts against Armenians were illegal under international law at the time of the genocide. Second, the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide applies retroactively. While the term “genocide” had not yet been coined when the 1915 Armenian Genocide was committed, the Convention subsumes relevant preexisting international laws and agreements, such as the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions. Since the genocide was illegal under those conventions, it remains illegal under the 1948 Convention. What is more, the current Turkish Republic, as successor state to the Ottoman Empire and as beneficiary of the wealth and land expropriations made through the 1915 genocide, is responsible for reparations.

Oh, OK. So reparations can only be charged for acts that were illegal at the time… That rules out slavery.

Guess we’ll go for a charge of genocide then, right?

What’s that?

Under this “law” (which is really just an international agreement), “genocide” means “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”?

Oh.

Well, good luck proving “intent to destroy”. Vietnam’s got a better case AND an agreement for reparations and is still standing, hand held out.

However, the only way for these groups to know whether they can succeed or not with reparation is to engage in the struggle.

And the only way you can know whether you can survive a shot to the head from a .38 special is to go ahead and have someone shoot you, J.

Empiricism is no defense for stupid ideas which deductive reasoning should tell us are hopeless.

Here’s the deductive process again:

1) Ex-slaving nations control the legal system.
2) There is no higher authority to compel anyone to follow this system’s rulings.
3) If there were such an authority and it were on the side of reparations, much more could be done with such power than simple reparations.
4) Finally, international law, such as it exists, is written to SPECIFICALLY block out slavery as genocide.

Oh, and don’t forget that even if we can prove that slavery was genocide, it STILL wouldn’t qualify anyone for reparations, because genocide was only made illegal under this system in 1899.

So Armenians, Vietnamese, Bosnians, Sudanese… A whole slew of other peoples, up to and including the Jews, have been clear-cut victims of planned genocide according to the UN: not a dime have any of these people seen, as far as I am aware, in spite of the legality of their cases.

And yet you still think it’s a great and practical tactic to sue the U.S. under international law for a crime which was committed outside said law’s own understanding of the legitimate timeframe?

Riiiiiiiight….

And you have the balls to say “Well we can’t know ’til we try,” even though many other groups with much more “open and shut” cases have tried and got jack?

J, The Hague couldn’t even successfully convict Milosevic, but you SERIOUSLY think international law is the solution?

I have said several times I think there should be reparations. My only question is how is this going to come about?

You do this all the time Thad, you stae a position, and when it becomes untenable. You then shift your argument to a new position.

This is how the debate unfolded:

A commentator said:

“Let me get this straight. The American government apologized to the Japanese AND gave them 20,000 but reparations for 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow is off the table. WTF?

Not saying the Japanese American brothers and sisters did not deserve that and more, but what about AA? Why is it considered so unreasonable to do the same for us?”

And here are your replies thereafter:

1. But hell, let’s say that the U.S. goes nuts and decides to offer repatriations for all the descendants of the slaves. How’s that going to be done, first of all? By blood quantum? Because there are a lot of white people out there who are also slave descedents and you’d better believe they’ll come out of the woodwork if a handout is in the offering.

And here is the important quote from the same post

2. You SERIOUSLY want the U.S. to hand out 6 billion dollars and then say “That’s it, black people! We no longer are bound to think about racism because you’ve received your ‘I’m sorry’ cash”? You should present this idea to the far Republican right. They’d love it. A 6 billion dollar one-time settlement to never have to think about racial justice or affirmative action again would probably be considered a good buy.

3. Under international law, it would be very hard to argue reparations, period. In both the Italian/Libyan and U.S./ethnic Japanese cases, you have survivors alive today and some sort of clear-cut lineage regarding the crimes

4. Reparations is simply something that isn’t going to happen, outside the realm of science fiction

and in the same post

Reparations are a pipe dream. Literally. The kind of idea that gets into someone’s head after smoking too much and listening to a lot of Bob Marley.

When asked why did you use the above racist stereotype you go on to say:

5. Because “reparate” and “repatriate” often get mixed up in this sort of discussion.

With regard to reparartions being a global issue you wrote:

6. Good on them! You be sure to tell me when it gets beyond the radicals espousing to other radicals stage, when any non-black radical group starts seriously considering it, OK? Because I don’t see how you’re going to convince the U.S. to voluntarily hand over this sort of cash unless,

This time it not being a matter related to international law

7. Where’s that corpus regarding reparations for slavery or any other, similar, question?

In another post on the same point.

8. You’re going to have an impossible time proving either of those two points [ie genocide & slavery] under international law and leading them to reparations,

9. Summing up, I think reparations, while a wonderful idea in theory, is a complete stoner’s pipe dream in practice. To hold it out as any possible effective strategy for the improvement of black peoples’ lives in the real world is to believe that a dogmatic fantasy of a small group of militants is somehow going to convince the very people they are trying to punish to punish themselves

10. How would such an entity pay reparations and do you really think that any notional future superpower forcing such a situation would really care about the plight of black Americans? Even if said superpower were, say, Nigeria? Again, history indicates that they would not. They’d have their own agendas to worry about.

Back to reparations and smoking weed again:

11. Reparations is the kind of stupid idea that gets into a kid’s head after listening to Garveyist rhetoric while under the influence. Whether the kid in question is white or black, the idea that it is some sort of basis for real political activity is puerile

12. Now all we got to do is figure out how to collect it.

I know! We’ll get the white kids to listen to even MORE Bob Marley while stoned than usual. Then, once Garvey’s wise words have penetrated to the depths of their subconsciousness, they’ll be ready to vote black people all the money in the world.

Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Folks, here’s the bottom line, truly. All my thoughts on this matter can be boiled down to this one thing. All my thoughts on this matter can be boiled down to this one thing: HOW ARE REPARATIONS GOING TO BE ENFORCED?

This time a question to me

13. My question to you is simple and unitary: HOW is it going to happen under any conceivable circumstance, no matter how remote?

A first time admission

I know people are fighting for this (across the world my emphasis).

Followed by:

What I would like you to show me is any coherent vision of how reparations could possibly be enacted.

You recognize that saying “people are fighting for this” is not the same thing as showing how ANY of said people expect to achieve it?

Another response directed at me

14. so nice try at wiggling your way out of this one, J, but no go: you have no pragmatic plan for reparations. It’s simply a rhetorical and dogmatic position with you.

About what I’d expect from a Garvyite. Garvey was always big on crowd-pleasing smoke-and-mirrors rhetoric.

15. J, this is simply wrong. I know of NO case of reparations for inhuman conduct that were mandated in a court of international law.

This in response to what I said:

“the issue of reparations is something that is enshrined in international law. It is given to countries who have a legal basis for a claim of injustice etc, or when such a claim is made. Usually that case will have to be argued out in a court”.

Thad describing himself and expertise

16. I am not an expert in international law, but I HAVE read quite a lot about the Nuremburg trials, Eichmann’s trial, Native American treaty law, and several very famous reparations cases. Because of my work on the human trafficking issue, I also have a pretty good workman-like notion of how modern anti-slavery law works on an international level and how the international court in The Hague is set up.

Moreover, I have researched the reparations issue with the people here in Brazil who push it and several of the organizations who push it internationally.

So while I’m not an expert, my knowledge on this point goes far beyond a Wiki education.

So I’m not simply spouting racist nonsense when I tell you that international law, such as it exists, is not geared to take entire nations and races to court and ESPECIALLY isn’t geared to do that for crimes against humanity.

_______________________________________________

So this in essence is your position regarding the subject, and it shows the shifting of positions etc.

I think you have said it all here eloquently, and Mira did quote you accurately

Thad I used this link because it says what you have been denying for so long that charges of reparations cannot be brought because of misdeed/conduct committed by a country.

So on this point you are wrong. On a more fundamental level it aso reveals your lack of knowledge in international law, something which even you admit to yourself. Please see point 16.

Secondly, with regard to the issue of slavery, the law can be used ‘retroactively’, just as the link says. However, that will take us into the issue of when and how can the law be used ‘retrospectively?’ Again this is something you missed in the link and not being conversant with international law, by your own admission.

And still while we are on your role here on this blogas to be the disruptor/liberal/racist etc

There is one important thing which you said:

I had asked:

“Surely you are not advocating that Blacks pick up guns and obtain the monetary that way”??

To which you replied:

“Personally, I’d think blacks would have a much better chance that way – though still not a very good one”

In the real world, this is exactly what happened with the Black Panthers. The state placed ‘agent provacauters’
within the group, to get the organisation to commits acts of violence that led to their ultimate demise – and people within the organisation’s death. In other words its a form of suicide but instigated by the powers that be

This is so common a strategy that it is used also in Britain, not so that people will die per se but to lead to the demise of radical groups – even to this day.

Very worrying that Thad should be willing to consider such a ‘strategy’ for Black people with regard to the issue of seeking reparations.

You do this all the time Thad, you stae a position, and when it becomes untenable. You then shift your argument to a new position.

Sorry, J, that’s not true. In this case from the very beginning, I have made a point to say that I do not feel reparations bad, per se, but that they are a pipe-dream in terms of practicalities for SEVERAL different reasons.

I mean, which part of “Hey, if you can convince the U.S. government to seriously contemplate giving 6.000.000.000 dollars to black people as reparations for slavery, I’ll vote for it. Just don’t blame me for the likely results…”

It’s very easy to claim that someone is aying something that they are not by selectively cutting and pasting, J. That comment of mine came very erarly in the debate and it was repeated:

Summing up, I think reparations, while a wonderful idea in theory, is a complete stoner’s pipe dream in practice.

Liking the idea or not has nothing to do with it [my resistence to it], J: I’d just like you to show me where this is international law.

Folks, here’s the bottom line, truly. All my thoughts on this matter can be boiled down to this one thing: HOW ARE REPARATIONS GOING TO BE ENFORCED?

Hell, I’d like to see blacks get 6 trillion in reputations, if only because it’ll put another nail in the coffin of U.S. imperialist ambition.

I mean, just how often fo I have to repeat that the IDEA of reparations is not the problem, J, it’s the practical implementation? I’ve done this a half a dozen times now, and yet here you are, bald-facedly lying that I’ve somehow changed my position on this?

J, are you really that poor a reader or are you simply that manipulative a person? Because there’s no way in hell that this point could’ve somehow gotten by you unoticed if you were actually reading what I wrote.

Even your partial and very tendacious “summing up” of my points shows me sticking to one point and coming back to it again and again. Here it is, once again, repeated for the 100th time (or thereabouts):

Reparations are a pipe dream because here is no international legal or practical basis for them that could possibly be made to work.

And yes, J, I believe that your rhetoric about reparations is typical Garveyite boolshite. It is long on rhetoric and completely lacking anything that could be called a pragmatic plan. It SOUNDS good and for Garveyites like yourself, that’s all you need, isn’t it?

If that’s not the case, then show us a pragamatic outline of how reparations can be achieved. You have not done this, nor has any site you’ve linked us to done this. Nor does any site I have investigated on my own do this.

Thad I used this link because it says what you have been denying for so long that charges of reparations cannot be brought because of misdeed/conduct committed by a country.

As far as I recall, I never said that charges couldn’t be brought. You enjoy paging through my old posts in search of contradictions, so knock yourself out.

Here’s my original comment on that:

Under international law, it would be very hard to argue reparations, period. In both the Italian/Libyan and U.S./ethnic Japanese cases, you have survivors alive today and some sort of clear-cut lineage regarding the crimes.

But note that NEITHER the U.S. nor Italian cases have anything to do with international law. Both countries voluntarily paid out those sums and asked for appologies from people who had been hurt by their acts in living memory.

I’m not aware of any area of international law (which is pretty vague) which can cover the U.S.-slavery case.

…and I stand by that original assessment. Nothing you’ve brought up has contradicted it. The Armenians aren’t getting cash: they’re having a HELL of a time arguing their point in court and in their case, they have a very clear lineage of the crime. Furthermore, the crime was conducted when genocide had already been outlawed.

To prove that black Americans are elligible for reparations because of genocide, you’d need to…

A) Prove that slavery was genocide in a legal and simply in a rhetorical sense (i.e. a conscious attempt to eliminate a people from the face of the earth);…

B) Prove that the genocide occurred under an operative form of international law which prohibitted it.

International law is clear on this point: a country can’t be guilty of a crime which occurred prior to the founding of the law. Seeing as how the earliest thing which could be understood as an international law or agreement against genocide was founded in 1899, then we’re pretty much SOL, aren’t we?

I suppose you could also try for reparations on the issue of slavery, but your going to run into the same problem again, I bet: international law won’t allow you to ask for reparations for something which wasn’t illegal under international law at the time.

So once again, J, the question isn’t and never has been “Can one bring charges for reparations in international court?”

The question is “Can said charges be made to work, in any way, shape or form?”

In other words, the question is “Do you have a case?”

The answer, as far as I can see, is no.

But people sue for sh17 all the time without having a case. You can bring charges up on anything you like. That was never at question. Whether or not those charges can be made to stick: THAT’S the question.

And J, no “we won’t know until we try” isn’t an answer unless the question is “How can we make money for lawyers?” Any ethical lawyer will tell you not to pursue a case unless you have some solid legal basis to do it. Sure, you can ignore the fact that you have a solid legal base, and charge away, but that’s not going to do you any good at all.

Its clear to see what was your original points. No amount of moving the ‘goalpost is going to change this fact:

I have quoted you at great lengths:

1. But hell, let’s say that the U.S. goes nuts and decides to offer repatriations for all the descendants of the slaves. How’s that going to be done, first of all? By blood quantum? Because there are a lot of white people out there who are also slave descedents and you’d better believe they’ll come out of the woodwork if a handout is in the offering.

2. You SERIOUSLY want the U.S. to hand out 6 billion dollars and then say “That’s it, black people! We no longer are bound to think about racism because you’ve received your ‘I’m sorry’ cash”? You should present this idea to the far Republican right. They’d love it. A 6 billion dollar one-time settlement to never have to think about racial justice or affirmative action again would probably be considered a good buy.

These were you initial comments.

As I said this is the ‘tactics’ you continue to use. When you are proved wrong on a point. You then go on to say, ‘I never said that’, ‘I never meant that’ etc. Or in this instance points 1 & 2 was not your starting point, but rather you begun your position at point 3 .

Let’s be honest here you are against reparations per se for Black people in America but you are attempting to utilse a ‘honest’ pretext to justify your position. And the one you are attempting to use is that you cannot see ‘how its going to work??’.

All this talk about reparations (i.e. cash handouts) is just a distraction from pursuing real solutions to the negative consequences of European colonialism. The focus should be on resolving the social problems experienced disproportionately by slave descendants and Native Americans so that they can catch up with whites. Why do so many minority families break up? Why do gaps in cognitive ability show up in minority kids at young ages? Why do so many minority kids get into crime and substance abuse? Determining the answers to these questions and formulating realistic policies based on them are key extricating ourselves from the racial quagmire.

What is even more ‘painful’ though is the influence that he and his partner (who is Black) has outside cyberspace iin the real world. With their anti-Black politics, and also – what must be assumed as the poor the level of education, if what has been shown on this blog, with the lack ability to reason, critical thinking etc. I dare to think how this all plays it out for the students but particularly the Black ones??

If ‘they’ can argue and give reason as to why the law should be used retrospectively – since it can be applied thus.

For instance with regard to Black people. Western nations and individuals are benefitting from the ramifications of slavery even today. Africa as a continent find itself in its current position directly as a result of this event.

So it depends if those who are advocating reparation can show that the argment of people NOT being alive is ‘superfluous’ to the effects of the crime, especially as it is still impacting today.

And again whether this argument will be accepted or rejected and/or before a court, does not preclude groups attempting to make such a claim, if they believe they have a ‘good’ argument.

Now this film is not for the fainthearted. I have just found my own personal copy a second ago, by chance.

“American distributors felt that such scenes were too incendiary, and forced Jacopetti and Prosperi to remove more than thirteen minutes of footage explicitly concerned with racial politics for American and other Anglophone audiences”.

I had expected a semi- disturbing watered down version of what slavery was about. But I have to say I was truly surprised…

@J

The background info you provided is also quite useful. And I can imagine why they might want to do this. I wonder what those omitted scenes would have looked like?

This film should be compulsory viewing in all educational establishments. Simply for the purpose of allowing ALL peoples – Black, white POC, Jews etc.. to re-connect with the horrors of the past most inhumane treatment of a people.

I say this because I believe most of the present traumas and conflicts today between Blacks and whites can be traced directly to this 500 year period of shielded history.

One of the beautiful touches is how the narrator, towards the end, plays out scenes from the past and contrasts these in the present (Not sure when this is).

It clearly shows how much of this conflict is still trapped in the psyches of all of this. So for me films like this are about releasing guilt and shame NOT about holding on or increasing them

Sadly, this view is obviously not shared by the American distributors.

Now I wonder if Thaddeous has watched the film and commented on it? Some how I doubt if it would make any difference to his presentation of views.

One last observation: I noticed at the end when the film attempted to show white people on the receiving end of the same brutal violence they inflicted on Black people.

Lets suppose all those people running around naked, brutalized and de-humanized had been white and the people carrying out these inhumane treatments as well as documenting the process had been Black. In other words Black people (Or any other peoples of colour) exchanged places with white people.

What would have been the affect on the white psyche?

And would the American distributors still have wanted to censor or make those cuts?

[…] The Transatlantic slave trade « Abagond The Transatlantic slave trade (1501-1867), known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade, sold at least 12.5 million black Africans as slaves to work for white landowners on the other side of the ocean. … […]

Why have you not mentions ANYTHING at all about the Arab slave trade and the 150 million Africans enslaved by the Arabs, and the 50 million whites, asians and orientals enslaved and sold by Muslims? Why have you forgotten that Muslim sharia law and the mass conversion of Africans, is what brought and invented the slave trade and export of human beings to Africa over 1000 years before any Hispanic, Oriental, South American, European or American were even involved in slave trading?

And you have also omitted that African kings REFUSED to end the slave trade and blame the British for interfering into their god given right to sell slaves. You also mention nothing of blacks in America who were freed – yet kept their own black slaves, purchased and sold them like other slave owners. You also mention nothing that after Africans were converted to Islam, they felt they had the right to enslave people and willingly marketed, captured and sold their own people – making millions in profit from this trade with Muslims.

At present in 2012 there are only two continents that still sell and purchase slaves: Africa and the Middle East. The trade continues, although no one in the west purchase slaves anymore since the past 200 years or so.
Why are you not writing about African slavery of their own people – which solely happened due to Islamic sharia law, which supports slavery? Most of Africa is Muslim, due to mass conversion of Africans during the 14 centuries of Arab slave trade.

When I write a post I write the title first. Then I write 500 words about it. The title of this post is “The Transatlantic slave trade”, not “People other than Europeans who traded and owned black slaves”.

I have written about Africans and Arabs and slavery, not as history but as an argument white racists use to preserve their moral blindness, which seems to be what you are doing:

At present in 2012 there are only two continents that still sell and purchase slaves: Africa and the Middle East.

I have news for you; when Ukrainian, Russian and other Eastern European pimps kidnap women and have them locked up in a house selling azz and not giving those women compensation of freedom….guess what…THAT’S SLAVERY.

Trans Atlantic reminents of slavery exists in Brazil, where they exploit workers to go long distances, stay in barricks situation, get room and board and work like dogs, but, there horrible salarie cant even pay the room and board, so , they cant even get out of the debt, they have to stay on as slave labor…this is more than once and they talk about it as slavery in the news , so that isnt my depiction…and these people are mostly brown and black people

We have all heard of that version with women and sex traficing, and, that is how it works with men, in labor camps…they cant pay off their room and board and transport debt

We need to end the slave trade COMPLETELY no matter where in the world it is. Unfortunately when it comes to Islam, slavery is endorsed by the religion. This means they converted millions of Africans to Islam to become their co-partner in the export slavery business.

SomeGuy: everyone know’s that the sex slave trade, is slavery. Again 80% of the entire slave trade is managed by Muslims due to their religious laws, that see no crime in killing or enslaving other people. The rest is by Russian mafia gangs and other criminal organizations.
Today there are an estimated 27 million people living in slavery.

Backpedaling? WHAT Backpedaling? There is no backpedaling about anything. You trivialize the origin of exported slave industry simple because you don’t bother to research it. Asia and the Middle East will not permit their history to be openly examined. 200 million slaves captured by Arabs and you spend pages and pages on hispanic, portugese, american and other slave history that were a drop in the ocean in comparison.

Blacks are the ones backpedaling right back into slavery, by converting to Islam! How dumb can people be? American prisons are full of blacks converting to Islam.

Go to youtube and listen to Simon Deng and other slaves who recently escaped slavery under Muslim law, after their countries were converted into Islamic societies. They imagined Islam would bring them good things to their countries. Instead after gaining political control, they quickly started enslaving people. You can buy black slaves for $10 in Sudan, Niger and other places that are MUSLIM societies.

This post is about the Transatlantic slave trade. You are not going to derail it with your rants about Muslims. If you want to talk about Arab or African slave owners and traders, then do so at the links I gave you (repeated below). That is the proper place to talk about that stuff – that is, if you are serious and not just about derailing this thread.

A lot of people like to bring up free negro slave owners but none of them mention how those free negroes became free nor how they came to own slaves. If you’re going to talk about something, talk about the whole story,don’t talk about it half way

i wonder why the Holy Bible. recognized and did not condemn slavery.
here is my take: in Old Testament days 2000 b.c. to 400 b.c. slavery was
accepted. A practice of tribes capturing slaves included Egyptians owning Hebrews, Africans
owning Africans of different tribes, Apaches owning members of other tribes, etc.
No shame involved. A little similar to women of America in the 1850’s -1920 having few rights,
no voting rights. Normal in its time. Perhaps the law to love your fellow man as yourself
quickened, informed man of God’s Will, and put into motion an energy that will discredit
slavery as a moral practice. The issue of shame began with the Golden Rule tho it took years
to fully develop in man’s collective consciousness.

[…] The Transatlantic slave trade (1501-1867), known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade, sold at least 12.5 million black Africans as slaves to work for white landowners on the other sid… […]

Mel, I’m white and I have tears pouring down my face. Did I know all this stuff already? Yeah, but it sickens the heart to read it. How is it possible we live in a world so dark? Thank God change has come thru good men and women who sacrificed so much to bring change, but then… it’s still out there, that darkness. Human trafficing. We must abolish the ownership and abuse of other humans… it must be wiped off the face of the earth. I pray, before one more child is taken, change will come.

[…] The Transatlantic slave trade (1501-1867), known by some in Texas as the Atlantic triangular trade, sold at least 12.5 million black Africans as slaves to work for white landowners on the other sid… […]

“A common white belief is that Africans “sold their own” as slaves. That is based on yet another common white belief: that Africa is a country. ”

Did you just make this up, or did you assume this? The truth is that some folks believe that slavery was strictly a white-vs-non-white issue, and the point being made by some is that it was not just whites buying-and-selling non-whites, that some of the non-whites participated as well, whatever their motives.

Some historians claim that Africans also mistaken assumed they were selling other Africans into servitude, not slavery, which was a common practice in Africa in the 1700s. I am not convinced of this, but some leading historians believe it is true.

Remember, savages–especially MOSLEMS–NEUTERED most their slaves, which is why it didn’t “fall upon the children”–what children?

For everyone else, if you could put two really expensive items together and have a third really expensive item free, you’d be a fool not to.
Dogs
Horses
Cows
Savages (Before they were counted as human)
I’m sure if people found a way to make cars or money reproduce, they surely would.

BUT there are still two-legged puppy mills long after slavery, so what’s the excuse there?
Or are they continuing because slavery wasn’t ended in other countries?

If there was limited food and water how did any of the slaves live forget half. No air how did they breathe? No space to even roll over which most were laying on their backs and were vomiting no reports of numerous deaths from choking. I can go on and on most importantly where are the North American slave ships? I’ll wait, not once in site and it doesn’t matter that they were wood this was just hundreds of years ago they would of survived. Basically my point is so far this sounds like a bunch of bullshit you know why? Because most black people were already here long before them stinking 13 colonies words of advice the only thing that matters is physical proof not documents because anyone can Doctor up fake paper work, don’t believe everything that’s told to you no matter who it comes from.

“Many Jews look white but in essence are not white because they have Jewish blood…like people believe whites were behind the African Slave Trade, when it was actually jews. There were also white slaves, working next to black slaves… and black plantation owners, who owned white and black slaves. To afford the cargo, ships or pay the captains, set up the ports, took money, something most whites did not have back then….it took European Christian whites to end slavery, after fighting against the powerful jewish lobby to keep it going.” -Harold Wallace Rosenthal

Jews have successfully managed to shift the blame for enslaving Blacks away from the themselves to Whites instead and they’ve used this lie to guilt trip compassionate White people and to agitate Blacks against Whites.
Whites did not have the money to afford a slave, let alone a ship full…the ports, ships, cargo…the entire African Slave Trade was a jewish operation, from beginning to end.

Jews and the transatlantic slave trade forms part of the wider history involving Jews and slavery which involved not only Africans, but also Europeans (especially Slavs), Middle Easterners, Central Asians and others. Specifically in relation to the transatlantic slave trade, it deals with the transportation of Black Africans to the Americas. Jews owned many of the slave-ships and had a very prominent, even leading role in the whole scheme.

Jews also sold white people as slaves to the Americas. Where tribes in Africa would kidnap other tribes to sell them to slavery to Jews, the Jews would kidnap whites. The hundreds of thousands of whites who were kidnapped, chained, whipped and worked to death in the American colonies and during the Industrial Revolution is kept secret by the Zionist-controlled media.[1]http://immigration-globalization.blogspot.com

it was European Whites that ended the African Slave Trade, not jews or the King of Nigeria, who both fought against the ending slavery in European courts to keep it alive. The Jews were expelled from Spain on August 2, 1492, and from Portugal in 1497. Many of these Jews emigrated to Holland, where they set up the Dutch West Indies Company to exploit the new world.

White slaves were what this country was founded upon, especially in the Tobacco regions. They were worked to death and very few made to the conclusion of the in-denturedom. It was only when they needed a new slave class, that they started using the blacks. “White Cargo”

Slavery was NOT abolished by Lincoln…

just the name was changed to sharecropper with over 5 million Southern whites and 3 million Southern blacks working on land stolen by Wall Street bankers.

White, black, Indian, Hispanic, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Confederates valiantly stood as one in thousands of battles on land and sea. Afterwards, they attended Confederate Veterans’ reunions together and received pensions from Southern States.

Photos of black Confederate veterans may be seen in Alabama’s Archives in Scrapbook – 41st Reunion of United Confederate Veterans, Montgomery, June 2,3,4 and 5, 1931.” Lincoln did not claim slavery was a reason even in his Emancipation Proclamations on Sept. 22, 1862, and Jan. 1, 1863.

Moreover, Lincoln’s proclamations exempted a million slaves under his control from being freed (including General U.S. Grant’s four slaves) and offered the South three months to return to the Union (pay 40 percent sales tax) and keep their slaves. None did. Lincoln affirmed his only reason for issuing was: “as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said (tax) rebellion.”

By 1699, the number of free blacks prompted fears of a “Negro insurrection.” Virginia Colonial ordered the repatriation of freed blacks back to Africa. Many blacks sold themselves to white masters so they would not have to go to Africa. This was the first effort to gently repatriate free blacks back to Africa. The modern nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia both originated as colonies of repatriated former black slaves.

“Many Jews look white but in essence are not white because they have Jewish blood…like people believe whites were behind the African Slave Trade, when it was actually jews. There were also white slaves, working next to black slaves… and black plantation owners, who owned white and black slaves. To afford the cargo, ships or pay the captains, set up the ports, took money, something most whites did not have back then….it took European Christian whites to end slavery, after fighting against the powerful jewish lobby to keep it going.” -Harold Wallace Rosenthal

Satan force, the JewISH are Khazar converts, and they in their own books documented how they orchestrated the slave trade, and owned slaves… They are the synagouge of satan, per King James Bible. Also, they believe in their Talmud, not the Torah. The Classic Talmud hates black people, and believe they were cursed to be ugly, and believe in sex with young kids.. It is all in their Talmud. THEY are JewISH alright, but not Hebrew Israelites.